And Then There Were...: Texas Trip

Last week, we traveled to Texas to visit my family. We went to the Riverwalk in San Antonio since P REALLY REALLY wanted to go. He liked it, so I'm sure we'll be going back. I was just glad to get some good TexMex cheese enchiladas. Not these Mexican jobs up here. Unless the cheese is cheddar, it's just not the same. We also visited my grandmother up in Austin and ended the day standing in line for the iPad2 and hanging out with some old friends. Saturday, we hung out with my family and my Aunt D and picked up a summer wardrobe for P. Sunday, we headed back. It felt like a really short trip, but we squeezed a lot into it and it was long enough that I was really glad to get home.

Ellie is growing. She has her 4 month appointment in a week and a half. I'm hoping to get her sleep schedule ironed out by then. I feel as though I've procrastinated my homework. I've been reading other blogs and forums trying to figure out what works for other moms. So far, it looks as though I'm not alone in my random "a la cart" style napping. However, from what I can tell, schedules are better in the long run. So, we've moved bed time up to 8:30 with the intention to get it to 8. She sleeps 7-8 hours most nights, followed by 2 1-1.5 hour naps to wake for good around 8. Today, I decided to try the 2-3-4 (named after the number of hours between sleep periods) schedule. I started trying for a nap around 9:45. She finally fell asleep in her crib around 10:30 (after a lot of fussing). I'm considering getting some darker curtains to go over her shades, but don't really want to make her light dependent. Following this schedule, her next nap should be around 2-2:30. If I can get her to nap for a couple hours, that will put her perfectly on schedule for an 8:30 bedtime. I expect I'll have to use the Ergo carrier. That's about the only way I can get a long nap out of her. Thank goodness our bedtime routine is down.

Ellie's hair is starting to grow. It's darkened some, but she's still blonde. She may end up a brunette though. P and I were both towheads into elementary school. Her eyelashes have just a bit of curl to them now. We've started using cloth diapers in earnest. But, in disposables we're moving up to a size 2. I have a pack of size 1's I need to send back to Amazon. Between that, and the fact that we've moved up to size 3-6 mos. in clothes, I'd estimate Ellie is around 13 pounds. She's holding up her neck well most of the time, so we don't have quite the problem getting milk stuck in her neck folds. She drools and bubbles like a fountain, so bibs are pretty much mandatory these days, although she does a pretty decent job mopping her own face if you give her a cloth diaper.

We took our first walk yesterday with the stroller. The weather was cloudy in the 60's with a bit of wind. We may take the dogs next time. Today looks even prettier.